News for Speakers’ Corner, Sunday 27th November

“I heard that if you eat more than six bananas it will kill you. I saw a bowl with seven bananas and I thought, ‘that’s dangerous’.”
Karl Pilkington

1. It was another glorious day, and we were visited by Ross, a journalist preparing an article for the “Neighbourhood” newspaper. Heavens knows what he made of today’s antics. It’s anyone’s guess.

One of the first matters discussed was parenting. Should we smack our kids?

2. The film of ex-speaker John Webster is still coming, but to keep you at bay, here is a video of John courtesy of the ABC.

3. We discussed the gender pay gap again, and this time we focused on one significant factor that explains the discrepancy (thanks to two journalists working for the ABC). Click here for the article on which the discussion was based.

4. Someone suggested that Steve Maxwell looks like Keanu Reeves. Yes, there is a strong resemblance.

5. It is confirmed: Mr B has no credibility. Today he asked his grasshoppers, “How could it be that my two female dogs (now dead) were once joined at their anuses or vaginas for fifteen minutes, and could not separate themselves? The two dogs walked about like Dr Doolittle’s Push-Me-Pull-You, and the shorter dog had her back legs dangling off the ground. It was only when Dad put the hose on them that they managed to separate.” He also explained that he had owned the dogs for more than 14 years, and both dogs had given birth to two litters of puppies.

Despite this detailed explanation, his grasshoppers figured he had made a mistake, that one of the dogs had to be male. i.e. They believed that Mr B could own two dogs for more than fourteen years and not realise one was a male.

That’s how highly they think of him.

Mr B, they won’t be asking you to join Mensa.

Amazingly, Mr B has just provided this scribe with proof that both dogs were female. As you can see, one has a litter and the other is obviously pregnant.

6. Mr B’s reputation plummeted even further when he agreed with Mirko’s idea to change the English language to a fonetik one. With the advent of ebooks and kindles, people should be able to press a button and read a fonetik translation, he claimed. Over time, the new spelling would be adopted by everyone, making it easier for anyone to learn the language.

When Mr B casually referred to the four spellings of ‘yor’ (fonetik), the gentle Uncle Pete called him a smartarse.

Mirko’s phonetics are not quite what Mr B had in mind.

7. Other subjects discussed:– Males have subjugated women for yonks, started nearly all the wars, created most of the crime, perpetrated most of the domestic violence, done most of the sexual harrassment, and are now famous for being sexual predators. As a consequence, Mr B feels guilty about being male. Then he was made to feel guilty about feeling guilty.

– Mirko stood on the Ladder of Knowledge and opened up about his family’s tragedies. He linked those tragedies with the humble tea-leaf, claiming that drinking tea is good for your health.

– The question was asked: “What caused The Beatles to break up?” (The Beatles are a defunct music band circa 1960.) The question was dismissed because the speaker, not having been a member of the band, didn’t know or care.

– Mr B told the story of how he inadvertently let a wombat squash his mother’s dog to death.

– The different ways people try to earn their self worth.

– Mr B is an atheist, and critical of the lame arguments smug atheists use to debate theists. So, today he claimed to be a theist and invited the atheists to debate with him. A vigorous discussion followed.
Mr B obviously thought he was an astounding success. Ho hum.

– Inspired by Mr B’s folly, Helmut spoke of the nature of God and energy.

– We didn’t evolve to use smartphones and social media, so why are they so attractive to us? And why does using them come so naturally to us? Even toddlers are adept.